That seems like some kind of B.S. The D500 and D7500 have the exact same sensor and Expeed 5 processor. The D7200 scores better at high ISO than the D500? I don’t think so.

AnotherView

At the margin, sensor performance is largely dependent upon post processing in firmware — not hardware.

EcoR1

It’s also dependent on the camera temperature during the testing -external and internal. I hope DxOMark uses temperature controlled testing room, because higher temperature will always lead to higher sensor readnoise. Of course how the camera is designed to handle the heat dissipation is also important. It should though noted that we are talking about differences of 0.1-0.2 stops here. Hardly meaningful in real life.

ola

As it runs at lower FPS rate, the sensor sampling rate may be lower. If that is the case, we should see a higher SNR at low ISOs compared to D500, but less of a gap at higher ISOs where read noise is not dominant.

Max

The scores of all the 24mpx DX cameras by Nikon are also all different, from the D3200 through to the D7200.
Also: the D5 got a much worse score than D4s and others, but these scores don’t reflect, for example, noise and dr performance at higher iso’s.
They will have it in the graphs though.

Pablo And-Jennifer Gabetta

Go to Nikonusa.com, they are different sensors, even phisically different.

From DXO how that metric works. It is the Max ISO that it can maintain a certain signal to noise ratio and also color depth and dynamic range. See below.

“Sports & action photography: Low-Light ISO
Unlike the two previous scenarios in which light is either generous (studio) or stability is assured (landscape), photojournalists and action photographers often struggle with low available light and high motion. Achieving usable image quality is often difficult when pushing ISO.
When shooting a moving scene such as a sports event, action photographers’ primary objective is to freeze the motion, giving priority to short exposure time. To compensate for the lack of exposure, they have to increase the ISO setting, which means the SNR will decrease. How far can they go while keeping decent quality? Our low-light ISO metric will tell them.
The SNR indicates how much noise is present in an image compared to the actual information (signal). The higher the SNR value, the better the image looks, because details aren’t drowned by noise. SNR strength is given in dB, which is a logarithmic scale: an increase of 6 dB corresponds to doubling the SNR, which equates to half the noise for the same signal.
An SNR value of 30dB means excellent image quality. Thus low-light ISO is the highest ISO setting for a camera that allows it to achieve an SNR of 30dB while keeping a good dynamic range of 9 EVs and a color depth of 18bits.
A difference in low-light ISO of 25% represents 1/3 EV and is only slightly noticeable.
As cameras improve, low-light ISO will continuously increase, making this scale open.”

RC Jenkins

The scores are based on the intersection of several different metrics–like noise, DR, color, etc. (which themselves have dependencies). If one of these is slightly off, it can have dramatic effects on the end score.

The best way to read these is “the high ISO / low light is roughly 1400). Think about the difference between ISO 1300 and 1400–it’s a negligible fraction of a stop at best.

zipduck

My thoughts as well. Same specs, different score. The sensor isn’t different, only thing that changed was control layout, AF module, shutter quality, etc.. but a sensor test being different? Your methodology is off.

hussey

Sensor could be the same, but the connections to it and whatever is around it could affect the noise, heat, etc…

ola

As I wrote (far above), the sensor is likely to be run at a lower sample rate, this lowers the electronic noise. Same sensor, lower sample rate, better low-ISO performance.

A. F.O.

are you 100% sure the sensor is the same on both cameras!?…I think it is not…

nwcs

They probably share the same sensor but Nikon likely tweaked the image processing in the year+ since the D500 is out. Remember that the sensor is only one part of what creates the finished image.

Stan Chung

D500 is probably toned down a teeny bit in quality/file size to accomodate faster shutter and bigger buffer rates.

ZoetMB

And that’s true for other technologies as well. I was at a TV “shootout” the other day. There were two sets that both use the same panel and in spite of both being calibrated, the two sets looked entirely different because of the firmware processing. Same for sensors within a camera.

no but it has more dynamic range and details. and for Landscape and portraits, it matters. However D7500 mantains an slight higher dynamic range and contrast at higher ISO returning an overall better image, but does not expect to make Milkyway as full frame free of noise.

Adam Brown

The differences are really small…. I’d chalk it up to margin of error.

FountainHead

Margin of error, nbd.

Daniel Han

ISO is applied gain by the camera’s software.
The D810 and D810a have the same sensors, which one is better at high ISO? The D810a. The D810a starts at ISO 200 compared to 64 on the D810.

That being said, take DxOmark with a massive grain of salt, their approach is pure empiricism, and this obviously means they do not bother with literally anything else, just numbers. I hope all of us here aren’t people who take photos of charts all day.

I bought mine refurbished this winter. I was really torn between snagging it and waiting for the D7500. I’m glad I didn’t wait because I love it to death.

The D7500 is a fine camera, just not the direct successor to the D7200 that I would have wanted.

Rick Francis

Refurbished D7200 for ~$700 looks like the best value for money out there…

A. F.O.

yeah….the only thing to note is that the D7200 sensor grab all the dust in the atmosphere….eh eh, so get a good cleaning kit too.

Mike Gordon

Huh? My D7200 has had no issues. I also own a D600 so I know how to look for crap on a sensor.

Max

I see the new Fuji sensors are very good, according to photonstop photos.

nwcs

DXO won’t measure them as they don’t want to adjust for x-trans. You can get an idea from similar sensor usages. If Fuji manages to get more traction I wonder if DXO will change their policy?

decentrist

they’ve already got more traction..

TwoMetreBill

As a Fuji fan I wish you were right, unfortunately no. Fuji is still sitting at a roughly 1% market share. Too many holes in their product line to break out.

decentrist

Fuji is producing full on and is expanding their production. That’s “traction” that CanNikon don’t have.

SUMAN

not only good, also.. pixel depth is Great… less mega pixel but photo clean and never break… on zoom… colour good, lens r really best of the best… even zoom lens… same zoom lens in nikon canon all satisfy photos… specially after zoom or if subject is far… but fuji sure shot…

on which day people can take very quick photos… like pick up camera and shot finish… all monopoly will fininsh… salute to Fuji….

Max

I have a x100s and the dynamic range is as good as my D5300. The iso performance is great at 6400.
I don’t know if it is better, but I can say I like the look of the noise better than the D5300 and D7100 when shooting high iso at night.

The D7500 looks cleaner & sharper to me than the Samsung. Of course, not by much–since the technology found in these sensors in general hasn’t really changed much the past few years. It’s much slower progress than people think. 🙂

That’s a problem with DxO: a lot of scientific numbers that sometimes dont correlate with what we see.

First time I noticed that was back in around 2010, when I was flirting with first m4/3 (they fit quite well in the place below the seat of my RF900 😉 ). I had a Panny G1 which was very poor regarding dynamic range, and numbers at DxO said that the GH1 had a DR about the same of my (great) D300, far above of the G1’s one. I bought one in a good deal I found, and results were horrible: low noise in the shadows (hence good measured DR by DxO) was got by a heavy NR on them, but there was no detail nor color there. In fact, results from the G1 were a lot more natural and not worse regarding the detail one could extract by applying some good NR.

Now we have the case of D5, which seems to not doing well at high ISOs, but comparison at dpreview says the other thing, and the same when I played with its first pictures comparing it with a D4 (I think I got those pictures from a link here at NR).

And, of course, this example you posted here 🙂

RC Jenkins

I’d go so far as to say these numbers aren’t all ‘scientific,’ and many photographers who don’t understand the science or methods behind the numbers often misinterpret them.

Take dynamic range: Did you know that DxOMark only tests with 13.3 stops, and then fills in the gaps to ‘stretch’ the numbers? The 14-stop range is partially a guess. 🙂

Or ISO: Did you know that the ‘sports ISO’ listed on DxOMark…has nothing to do with the ISO setting on your camera? DxOMark may score your camera 1400, and another camera 1300–that’s their ‘measured’ ISO. You then have to convert this ‘measured ISO’ to the camera’s ISO setting for it to be of any use. So, in this example, the D500’s ISO 1600 setting is a ‘measured ISO’ of 1156, and the D7500’s 1600 is 1112. This ‘measured ISO’ is what is reported as the ‘Sports ISO’, so the setting to use needs to be compensated for this discrepancy.

…or you could just go out and get familiar with your camera & how it handles various lighting and shooting scenarios. 🙂

Borgar Tessem

They dont need to catch up anny more since Samsung went out of camera production, couldnt make money on it

Pablo And-Jennifer Gabetta

I always said the D500 and D7500 have different sensors.
They even measure physically differently…

But there are more reasons as well. Eg. sometimes the outside of the sensors are purposely kept dark and not used directly, for comparative noise reduction algorithms. Other times, could be due to other parts, or speed, or other considerations.

The D7500 and D500 do have the same sensor.

Even the results here aren’t necessarily indicative of different visible performance, so take them with a grain of salt. There could be different processing. There could be different variances in the tolerance of measurements. There also possibly could have been different ISO settings that have the same actual sensitivity (as these are ‘measured’ ISO values that are interpolated).

In any event, use these as estimates at best.

Think in terms of stops. Consider this: the results here were ISO 1324 vs. ISO 1483.
This is less than 1/6th of a stop–less than half of the smallest adjustments you can make in your camera. This is also less than 1% of the linear dynamic range of the sensor. ISO 1324 vs 2648 would be 1 stop. This was 1324 vs. 1483.

Indeed, why would a manufaturer make two sensors that look the same and perform the same but are different in less than 0.01 % of its design and imposes a double chain of costs (design, test, making, stock…).

Also, I don’t understand how many people can take outrageous conclusions from so little difference in numbers (regarding DxO scores, which sometimes seem to be the “God’s word”…).

ola

Lower sample rate.

EnPassant

Differences in performance is mostly depending on fine tuning of the signal processing.
All sensors are bigger than the actual surface used. Meaning two sensors with different measurements for the active sensor area indeed can be the same.

paige4o4

Or because they’ve refined their manufacturing process to deliver slightly better chips, and fewer lemons.

CaMeRa QuEsT

It only means that one additional vertical row of pixels have been masked on the D500 for whatever reasons engineers have chosen to do so (dark current readings?) with the obvious differences in fine tuning this will require, otherwise the measurements themselves look so close as to being statistically irrelevant. Having said that, It is weird that the D500 has an odd number of vertical pixel rows as in a Bayer color filter pattern there should be even numbers of vertical and horizontal rows.

As usual, the DXO ‘scores’ don’t tell the whole story. If you look at the measurements:

D7200 has slightly better DR and Color Sensitivity up to around ISO 400.
D7500 has equal or slightly better DR and Color Sensitivity from ISO 400 on.
D7500 has slightly better Tonal Range and SNR across all the ISOs.

RC Jenkins

And the 1″ sensor on the DxO One SuperRaw Plus outperforms all of Nikon’s APS-C cameras for high-ISO/low light and is only marginally behind Nikon’s FX line.

I apparently should trust DxO to score their own cameras, and it’s just good engineering that theirs was great. Yeah, I don’t see any problems with that…

😉

Wesley

SuperRaw is feature using stacked shots vs single DSLR shot. Should be similar to Pentax pixel shift. It’s limiting to static scenes. It doesn’t exactly belong on that list. Cheated, you can say.

But this list doesn’t take into account for resolving detail. Those APS-C cams would resolve much better fine details.

Andrew

The information DxO provided on their 1-inch sensor is misleading, why so? That 1-inch sensor is going through special processing with multiple shots being taken and stitched together before the result is measured.

DPREVIEW:

“As far as pocketable cameras go, the DxO ONE is the most likely to fit into the smallest of pockets. Built as a companion to Apple mobile devices, it connects directly via integrated Lightning connector to bring your iPhone a 20MP 1″-type sensor and 32mm equivalent F1.8 lens. We put its standard shooting mode as well as its SuperRAW mode up against our studio test scene.

The SuperRAW mode uses four shots to apply spatial and temporal noise reduction to help enable the 1” sensor to produce as noiseless an image as possible. This means the SuperRAW images had to go through a non-standard process using DxO Optics Pro and ACR. More information around processing can be found in the info tab (the little “i” icon to the right of the download link below each image).”

DxO marketing department went into overdrive to make certain that the process the device uses to obtain those results are not reported on the test page. Poor behavior. I still trust the DxO results of their camera tests as DxO is a part of a standards organization, but full transparency was critically needed in this situation. They have had about 2 years to fix this fiasco and have decided not to do so.

Lol @ the crowd calling dxomark “fake news” because their camera isnt on top… What really matters is that your images are top notch…. if you focus on that you woudnt care much about a 2 point score difference.

One exception is DR–though this is basically a “Canon” vs. “Everyone else (Sony)” game at this point.

Because the scores are ‘overall’, I personally find them useless. If you primarily shoot landscapes and need DR & resolution, why would you need a ‘Sports’ score?

Pippo

From praxis. To hold up speed, I shoot sport with D600 at ISO400, with D200 too at ISO400. Do the same sport with D500 at ISO100. I’m don’t doing deep research, but simply D500 is a newer, faster camera. Maybe D7500 cappable more, because new camera.

The budget of an enthusiast photographer plays also an important role. I am still shooting with my D600. It was the best i could buy with my money at that time (together with the 24-85mm kit lens). I’ve bought the Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G and 50mm f/1.8G lens later. Good lenses are way more important than replacing a camera body each year.

Andrew

The low light performance of cameras like the D750 trumps the D600. So it all depends on what type of shooting you do.

I know. The AF goes down to -3 EV. Gives faster and more reliable focus acquisition in low light. I am still happy with the D600 and i don’t have money for new lenses at the moment. Would like to have the Nikkor 200-500.

Max

You shoot the D500 at lower ISO?
Don’t you mean you shoot it at higher iso?

Pippo

I’m talk about tennis, who i shooted with all my cameras and compare. Never shoot indoors basketball with D600, but do it with D200. Season starts at September and let’s see how capable is D500 at high ISO.

My D7000 was bought because of DXO ratings long ago, i regret so much this, for some reason the skin rendition of the D7000 is to my eyes terrible, lot of post to get somewhere near to what Canon generaly does.
But Canon was always on them bottom How that’s possible?
To me nowadays the process is: pick thousands of pictures on the internet, if most of the pictures comes from one camera or one brand, Pick that camera/brand.

Mauro Schramm

Okay. Your process caters to your specific needs. It does not replace the DXOmark tests. It adds.

Why is the skin rendition terrible? Can you elaborate this, please? Under which circumstances and settings? Do you use correct white balance settings? Color checker? Picture control settings?

Originaru

Yes, at most lighting conditions skin colors are really underwhelming, not always i can get there on post, imagine if everybody could or needed a color checker to do every type of portrait…
C’mon, don’t try to damage control d7000 has terrible skin redition out of the camera, everybody knows this. greenish, yellowish…

The best comparison is to take the same picture of different cameras using the same framing, lighting, composition, focal length and focus. The studio scene of DP Review where you can compare between camera models is a good starting point.

DaveyJ

I use the D7200 most of the time. However as we own a D500 I would rate that overall as best. I take this rating as useful if you are extolling the virtues of theD7200! But as science, and measurements? Questionable at best. I do feel the D7500 will be in the hunt! Shows a whole lot of measurements will produce…..noise in the data? Lies, damned lies, and statistics. But as a D7200 user I know their rating of that camera was OK with me. But the D500 rating?

neonspark

It has been two years since I checked DXO and canon still not on the list XD

Canon used to perform poorly and they were considerably behind Nikon in ISO and Dynamic Range for years.

James R Mercer

I like and respect DXO’s ratings, as I also do with Senscore’s ratings. However, I also keep firmly in mind that the ratings and measurements – while incredibly valuable – don’t tell the whole story.

For example, there are no rating values assigned for auto focus speed, accuracy, etc. There’s a huge difference between the D500 and the D7500 in that area.

Nor is there a rating for ergonometrics, or for things like buffer depth, FPS, battery capacity and so forth – although such things are mentioned in the reviews and discussed.

The thing here is that different cameras have different relative strengths and weaknesses, and the preference (or weight) that people assign to these aspects makes the difference. So when I see folks here (or anywhere) cheering because of some incremental technical rating or other, I just have to kind of chuckle and shake my head. 🙂

For me, the D7500 simply isn’t a camera I want, although I’m currently a D7100 owner. (Also a D750 owner).

When I replace my D7100 within the next few months, I’ll go for a D500 – because those unmeasured aspects of the two cameras matter to me more than some slight difference in scores from DXO, in this case. 🙂

Ben Cushwa

DXO is first and foremost reviews sensor performance. There is so much more to a camera than sensors.

Ric of The LBC

Bite your tongue

KnightPhoto

LOL. Having said that, when evaluating a particular camera I do place huge weight on the sensor first and foremost.

I can def vouch for the D500 (D7500) sensor. I want to say “typical Nikon” and by that I mean what a great sensor to shoot from low to high ISO. Just finished a Theatre shoot and the D500 raw images were very bendable and malleable up to the ISO 6400 that I pushed them, under some rather extreme conditions where spotlight to background actor lighting differences were stupidly extreme. Ended up having to hammer the highlights down and shadows up to a sometimes stupid degree and definitely due to some exposure mistakes on my part too (getting used to highlight priority metering).

I also have some highly detailed lower ISO wildlife images (e.g. ISO 400-1600) that handled high dynamic range and high contrast very well.

Good versatile sensor for my purposes, Reminds me of my D4 at high ISOs and D7100/D800E at low. Good images to work with.

James R Mercer

Absolutely! But it’s one of the few areas in a camera that can be objectively and scientifically measured and compared. It’s a data point, and shouldn’t be the only factor people consider, but it’s something that should be considered. 🙂

TouchmymonkeyUK

I own a D500. When i bought it i was happy with it, then they brought out a D7500. Still happy with my D500 as that was the one i bought and use.

DXO is irrelevant to 90% of people who are in no way going to spend money on something they either don’t want, need or can’t afford.